A Better Missile Defense

About the Author

Baker SpringF.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security PolicyDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy

Washington is having the wrong missile-defense debate. Supporters
and opponents of President Clinton's proposed national missile
defense have been squaring off over testing, timetables and
tensions with Russia. Lost in the fray is any discussion of a more
fundamental question: Will the president's system -- a single
ground-based site in Alaska -- provide the best protection for the
country?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. A ground-based system, no
matter where it is built, is not the best option. For starters, it
is expensive, with an estimated cost for deploying and operating
the system as high as $30 billion. It is also time-consuming,
requiring at least five years to deploy the first 20 interceptors
and two more years to increase that count to the president's
desired 100. Waiting until 2007 to field a missile defense gives
North Korea and other rogue states too much time to refine their
technologies.

Nor would the ground-based system touted by the president be
able to protect all 50 states from the most likely types of attack.
An Alaskan site might be able to intercept a North Korean
Taepo-Dong before it struck Hawaii, but destroying an Iranian
missile now in development before it reached New England would be
impossible. And with its fixed location, a ground-based site would
offer no protection against ballistic missiles launched at American
troops overseas or U.S. allies.

Perhaps the most glaring deficiency of a ground-based system is
its inability to shoot down missiles until they've reached the end
of what is called the "mid-course phase" of flight, when they are
directly overhead and traveling more than 15,000 miles per hour.
This part of a missile's flight occurs well after decoys or
multiple warheads have been released, reducing the chances of
finding and destroying the target. Even if a successful hit is
made, there is the danger of fallout from any chemical, biological
or nuclear payload the warhead was carrying.

If a ground-based system were the only option available, such
risks might be acceptable. But there is an alternative: a sea-based
missile defense based on technology already used by the U.S. Navy.
No less than the chief of naval operations himself, Adm. Jay
Johnson, recently warned that relying on a ground-based defense
alone "would not be in the long-term interests of our country." He
urged Defense Secretary William Cohen to add a sea-based component
to make the president's proposed missile defense more
effective.

The cornerstone of a sea-based defense is the Navy's Aegis
defense system, created two decades ago to protect the U.S. fleet
from aircraft and cruise missiles. An upgraded Aegis system that
includes space-based sensors to help detect launches could track
and destroy missiles targeted at the United States, its allies, or
troops in the field.

Aegis is already being upgraded as part of the Navy Theater-Wide
(NTW) program, which Phillip E. Coyle, the Pentagon's director of
operational testing and evaluation, praises as "technically solid."
NTW will provide U.S. troops and allies protection against
shorter-range missiles, but it can do more. The Pentagon's
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization has said NTW can be
reconfigured to target long-range missiles. Indeed, the Aegis radar
successfully tracked North Korea's Taepo-Dong during its most
recent test flight.

A blue-ribbon study panel headed by Amb. Henry Cooper, the
former Director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization,
released a report last year showing that an enhanced NTW system
could be ready for deployment earlier (in three to four years) and
at a lower cost ($8 billion) than a ground-based option.
Eventually, 650 interceptors could be deployed on the 22 Aegis
cruisers already patrolling the seas. Combined with the
constellation of space-based sensors, this would create a highly
mobile missile defense covering almost 70 percent of the earth's
surface.

A sea-based defense also could be positioned close to regional
"hot spots," providing multiple opportunities to intercept
attacking missiles in flight. Using tracking data relayed directly
to interceptors launched from the Aegis cruisers, such a defense
could destroy missiles in their "ascent phase," thereby enlarging
the protection area.

Given its inherent limitations, even a perfected ground-based
missile defense will never provide the necessary protection. A
sea-based system, by contrast, can defend against the missile
threats the United States will face in the near term -- and it can
do so faster and for less money. That's the debate Washington
should be having.

Baker
Spring is a research fellow in the Davis Institute for
International Studies at The Heritage Foundation
(www.heritage.org).

About the Author

Baker SpringF.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security PolicyDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy